Speaker: Business needs to reshape U.S. energy

The business community needs to help reshape America's energy future, according to the president and CEO of the Institute for 21st Century Energy with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Karen Harbert spoke at a Midland Area Chamber of Commerce event Friday. She said as the world sees more demand for energy, the U.S. should be the place companies look to invest, not elsewhere.

To make that happen, the country needs politicians to back energy policies that promote growth and reduce regulations, Harbert said. She called on the audience to get involved and communicate the need for change to their lawmakers.

Harbert also shared a reality all businesses will have to face: "Gas prices are not going to go down to where we saw them in 2008 ever again."

There's not enough supply being tapped right now to keep up with increasing global demands, she said.

Harbert said she would like to see an easier process for the approval of nuclear plants in the U.S. America has the safest nuclear systems in the world, but it takes years to get approval and see any work begin on plants, she said.

Sid Allen, president and CEO of the Midland Area Chamber of Commerce, said Harbert's visit was informative.

"We're trying to provide information that they can take back and make their own decisions and see what they want to do individually, and as a business, to foster some kind of action," he said of those in attendance. "We have some energy policies at the Chamber that we want to put forward to our elected representatives. This just helps crystallize it a little bit more for us."